


when the leaves fall, i'll catch you (and never let you go)

by sinivalkoista



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bandits & Outlaws, Blood and Injury, Execution, Gen, Heavy Angst, Immortal Merlin (Merlin), Immortality, Magic, Magic Revealed, Merlin Dies (Merlin), Merlin's Magic Revealed (Merlin), Sad, Sad with a Happy Ending, Stabbing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-09 05:14:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27419353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinivalkoista/pseuds/sinivalkoista
Summary: Merlin and his eyes met."Sorcerer."Merlin's blue orbs were filled with nothing but fear.Arthur's first instinct was to kill the sorcerer.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 218





	when the leaves fall, i'll catch you (and never let you go)

The rain splattered in a muted tattoo against the leaves on the forest floor outside the cave where Arthur and Merlin were hiding. 

Both were conscious, but not all were present in mind.

Arthur was thinking.

Despite what Merlin claimed, he could use his brain.

In this case, he didn’t want to. Because Merlin was a sorcerer. And as his friend lay on the ground of the cave and the rain splattered down from the sky, he was thinking about whether or not he should kill Merlin.

…

“I just don’t see why we have to go hunting  _ today,”  _ Merlin complained as his horse jostled underneath him.

Arthur cast a look back over his shoulder at his servant. “Because I said so,  _ Mer _ lin.”

“Yes, sire,” Merlin threw back sarcastically, rolling his eyes. “Your word is practically  _ law.  _ I don’t know why I stopped to question it.” There was silence for a few minutes before Merlin started up again. “I just don’t see why you had to drag  _ me  _ along when there are other knights who could’ve come. Like Percival. Or Gwaine.”

“Sir Gwaine is louder than a hibernating bear,” Arthur reminded Merlin in a flat, bored voice. Although he was a loyal friend and knight, Sir Gwaine was the last person Arthur wanted to take on a hunting trip. After a night of heavy drinking, he wasn’t known for his stealth.

“It’s not like I don’t have half a dozen things to do,” Merlin went on as though Arthur hadn’t spoken. “Like polishing your armor or mucking out the stables.”

“If you don’t like your job, you don’t have to stay, you know,” Arthur told him. He wouldn’t  _ fire  _ Merlin, of course, but maybe the statement would get his manservant to shut up for a bit so they could actually find a decent bit of game that hadn’t been scared away by Merlin’s complaining.

Merlin scoffed. “And let you get yourself into trouble?”

Arthur huffed. It amazed him how Merlin could think so highly of himself whenever a rabbit was more capable than he was. “May I remind you,  _ Mer _ lin, that you spend half of your days in the tavern - in trouble.”

At the mention of the tavern, Merlin turned sullen. “I don’t spend half my days in the tavern,” he defended himself with a hurt tone.

Arthur didn’t believe it. Whenever his manservant went missing (“At the tavern, sire”) and since his manservant returned with bleary eyes and shuffling, Arthur was inclined to believe him. “You are a  _ terrible  _ liar, Merlin.”

Merlin straightened up on his mare. “I’ll have you know-” he began hotly.

There was ruffling in the trees off to their left. Instantly, Arthur was alert. “Quiet, Merlin,” he snapped.

Merlin wasn’t having it. “You-”

“Merlin!” He held up a hand.

Merlin dropped his attempts at arguing. “What is it?” he hissed to Arthur.

Arthur didn’t know. After drawing his horse to a stop, he prepared his crossbow in case a deer were to jump out of the bushes.

Except it wasn’t a deer that leaped out.

It was bandits.

“Blast,” Arthur cursed under his breath as men armed with swords and maces and other weapons poured out of the trees. Even though he and Merlin were outnumbered 25:1 (he didn’t really count Merlin because goodness knew Merlin couldn’t defend himself against a charging goat), he readied his crossbow and evaluated which of them would be the most strategic to remove from the situation.

He fired. And missed.

“Arthur!” 

In his head, Arthur cursed his idiotic manservant. Really, yelling his name out for every one of the bandits to hear. If they didn’t know who he was before, they knew now. Many people (like Morgana, but Arthur wasn’t going to think about  _ her  _ at that moment) would pay a heavy price for the prince of Camelot to be placed into their hands.

Tossing the now useless crossbow to the side, Arthur withdrew his sword. “Get behind me, Merlin.” Even though he was far outnumbered, he was still a formidable opponent and wouldn’t be going down without a fight.

He was on a horse. They were on foot. That evened the field.

For as long as it lasted.

Even though Arthur was swift with the sword and strong, there were too many of them. They pulled him off his horse, and he was sure that Merlin was already on the ground. Merlin couldn’t hold up a sword, let alone take down anyone with it without cutting off his own foot.

With a shrill whinny, his horse barrelled off into the woods without him. He couldn’t concentrate on that. He threw a quick look over his shoulder to check on Merlin.

His manservant had disappeared, and his horse was galloping off in the other direction.

Good. Merlin was sticking to his usual tactic of hiding in the bushes until the danger was over. It was one fewer thing for him to worry about even if Merlin  _ was  _ annoying.

He turned around to block a sloppily aimed blow to his head and to return with his own thrust. Yanking his sword out of the man’s shoulder, he turned around to defend himself from the bandit coming at his back.

He was surrounded.

Even despite the odds against him, he continued parrying blows until one of the bandits yelled, “Stop!”

Arthur sighed with relief. Finally, someone with sense in his pea brain. Maybe-

His thoughts were cut off as a lanky finger was dragged away from the group and a knife was held to his throat. A small trickle of blood was already falling from a thin line on the vulnerable skin.

Merlin. 

When the fighting stopped, an ugly man (obviously the leader of the group) stomped over to Merlin. 

“Leave him alone,” Arthur snarled. “He’s a servant, nothing more.”

Holding his sword still, the bandit leader smirked. “Drop your weapon.”

_ Dropping his weapon  _ was the last thing Arthur wanted to do. 

“Do it, or your  _ servant  _ gets it,” the man threatened, nodding to the man holding Merlin.

“No, don’t-” Merlin started.

The knife cut deeper into his skin, cutting the words off.

Angrily, Arthur threw his sword to the ground. It hit the dirt with a thud. Even though there was no reason to believe the man wasn’t going to do anything even if Arthur wasn’t unarmed, he couldn’t risk it.

“He’s just a servant,” Arthur stated again, making his voice as bland as possible even though he was inwardly panicking. If Merlin died, it would be his fault for dragging him out hunting. “It’s me you want. Let him go.”

The bandit leader’s lip curled into a sneer. “How precious. I don’t think so. I believe you care a great deal about your  _ servant,  _ Arthur Pendragon.”

Any hopes that they were unaware of who he was died.

“Now, Pendragon, on your knees,” the man ordered. 

There was nothing he could do. If he wanted to keep Merlin alive, he would have to obey the man’s orders.

Even though it felt as though he were tasting dirt as he knelt and other bandits took hold of his arms to keep him from rising. A sharp knee was placed against his neck.

“Good.” The man turned around back to Merlin. “We don’t need him. Kill him.”

Arthur panicked. “No! He is innocent of anything. Let him go.”

The bandit scoffed. “He is more than innocent. He’s useless to me. Kill him.”

Merlin’s eyes were wide. “Art-” he started. 

The man holding the knife to his neck hesitated.

“For the love of-” A knife still in his hands, the bandit leader strode towards Merlin.

“Do not touch him!” Arthur roared, struggling. If he had known - If he had  _ known- _

He didn’t see what happened because the man’s body was blocking his view, but Merlin cried out in pain. As the man stepped away, he slumped to the ground, free of any hands holding him, red quickly staining his shirt.

“Merlin!”

“Just a servant, eh, Pendragon?” the bandit leader sneered, wiping his blood-stained sword on the ground. “I believe he was a lot more to you. It’s a shame, really, to have to kill someone. We could have gotten a bit of money for him.” 

Arthur was seeing nothing but red. 

It was either Merlin’s blood or nothing but anger.

“Kill Pendragon.”

“What?” Arthur couldn’t believe his own ears. 

The bandit leader marched up to you. “Thought we were going to hold you for ransom, eh? Not this time. We’re sick and tired of prats like you running the people into the ground. Maybe if we kill his  _ son-”  _ He placed his face right in front of Arthur’s so that he could smell the onions on his bad breath. “-Uther will get the message.”

“ _ Prat _ ’s my word,” a weak voice mumbled from behind them.

_ Merlin.  _ Thank  _ goodness  _ he was still alive. There had to be a way out of it.

The leader marched over to Arthur’s right. Arthur followed him with his eyes and head until his head was jerked until he was looking at Merlin’s body.

Merlin was trying with all of his might to sit up, but it was a losing battle. He was weak from blood loss and about to die. 

The bandit leader raised his sword in the air.

“Arthur!” Merlin cried.

Arthur refused to close his eyes. If this was the end, he was not going to meet it like a coward.

He felt the air current the sword generated as it swooshed through the air towards his neck. He was tense. He was a tight string about to snap under the pressure.

Merlin looked terrified at the prospect of Arthur’s death by beheading more than his impending one from blood loss.

“No!” 

He saw it. 

Later, he would try to reason his way out of it, but there was no way to deny what he saw.

Merlin’s eyes flashed gold.

As though they had been struck by lightning, the bandits were thrown against the nearest trees, hitting the hard wood with deafening cracks. 

All crumpled to the ground. Unconscious or dead.

Arthur was the only one left alive.

Merlin and his eyes met again.  _ “Sorcerer.” _

Merlin’s were filled with nothing but fear.

…

Arthur’s first instinct was to kill the sorcerer.

There was a sorcerer lying five feet away from him, slowly bleeding out onto the dirt and rock of the cave floor, and he was sitting and thinking.

Doing nothing.

Had he really dragged the sorcerer all this way to safety to give him a slow, painful death?

A small part of his brain whispered,  _ This is Merlin, your friend. _

“He’s a sorcerer,” he muttered to himself, turning his hands over each other. “A traitor to the crown.”

Sorcery was a crime punishable by death.

He stood and withdrew his sword from its sheath. Raising it, he calmly paced over to the sorcerer.

He languidly opened his eyes. They were blue now, not gold, the same shade that stared at Arthur critically when he ate one too many sausage for breakfast or that rolled at Arthur when he gave him armor to polish.

Merlin closed his eyes. “For you,” he whispered weakly.

It was more than an ordinary sorcerer. It was his friend. It was  _ Merlin. _

Arthur could not kill him.

Arthur threw his sword against the floor of the cave and began pacing furiously.

“I should kill him now,” he said to himself, running his hands through his hair. “It would be better than the pyre.”

Merlin didn’t say anything.

Arthur wanted him to do something. To yell at Arthur. To react. To do more than just lie on the floor, bleeding out while the rain outside drowned out the side of his labored breathing.

He  _ should  _ kill Merlin now, he realized. It would be a quick death. Merlin was evil if he had magic.

Or was he? The annoying part of his brain asked him again.

“Merlin is evil. Magic is evil,” he told himself, picking up his pace. “If I had not discovered it, he would have never told me he had...has it.”

“Born with it…” Merlin whispered weakly. “Never wanted...for you…”

“Shut up,” he told him. “Just...shut up, Merlin.”

His mind was spiraling. Most sorcerers  _ chose  _ to learn the craft. He’d never heard of someone being  _ born with it.  _

But perhaps Merlin was lying about that. A sorcerer would lie to him. A sorcerer  _ would  _ lie to him. In fact, Merlin was never going to tell him. He only revealed his magic because he-

Arthur’s train of thinking came to a halt.

Merlin saved Arthur’s life.

With magic.

Instead of letting Arthur die like any enemy to the throne of Camelot would have, he chose to save Arthur and risk his own neck.

He didn’t even stop the blow that was causing his own slow death.

He saved  _ Arthur  _ instead. The person he insulted daily. Called  _ sire  _ sarcastically.

Merlin wasn’t evil.

Arthur almost buckled to his knees in relief. Merlin wasn’t even. He reached up to rub his eyes and found that his cheeks were wet.

Merlin wasn’t evil.

He let out a laugh. A small one that grew larger as he was more sure of the fact.

Merlin wasn’t evil.

A groan rose up from the floor, and the laugh died in his throat.

Merlin was dying.

Hurriedly, he rushed down on the cave’s floor next to him and propped him up. “Merlin, listen to me,” he ordered. “I am the biggest clotpole to ever walk Camelot. Heal yourself.” There was too much blood and Merlin was too pale for anything he could try to do to work. Merlin needed to heal himself. It was the perfect solution.

Merlin’s eyelids flickered to reveal a hint of blue.

“Heal yourself,” Arthur told him again in case he was not in his right mind. “I command you to use your magic and  _ heal  _ yourself!”

Merlin blinked at him before gagging on something. Arthur helped him turn over and cough blood out of his mouth. 

“Merlin, you idiot. Heal yourself!” Arthur ordered, shaking his friend by the arms.

Why wasn’t he healing himself?! He held the power - Arthur had seen him knock out two dozen bandits. He was conscious. Why wasn’t he healing himself?

“Come on!” Arthur slapped Merlin on the face as his eyes slowly started sinking closed again. “Do it!”

Merlin coughed, spewing more blood out of his mouth. He cracked open an eye. “No…” His voice was barely audible.

Arthur shook him roughly. “Do it!”

Merlin gagged one last time before his eyes slid shut again. Nothing Arthur did roused him. Frantically, he placed his ear against Merlin’s blood-soaked chest, listening for any traces of a heartbeat. When that didn’t work, he placed his hand above Merlin’s mouth, checking for any sign of breath in him.

There was none.

“No,” he whispered. “ _ NO.” _

He could not believe it. Why hadn’t the idiot healed himself? Why had he let himself  _ die? _

The future king of Camelot began to cry. Fat tears dropped down from his face onto the body of his manservant.

Merlin was dead.

The rain continued to pelt the leaves and the moss outside.

…

Arthur had been sitting in the same spot for at least ten minutes, but he could not bring himself to move from the vigil beside his friend.

It seemed wrong to leave him out in the open where any wild animal could find him and cart him off.

He shivered.

The knights wouldn’t be roused to come looking for them for several more hours yet. 

Gaius would be heartbroken.

He buried his head in his hands. He would never be able to face the aged physician. The news would probably kill the older man.

The atmosphere around him seemed to change. Before, it had been dreary and cold, but now Arthur felt warmth at his numbed fingertips.

He looked up.

Merlin’s body was glowing with a faint blue light.

Gradually, he stood to his feet as he watched. “What in…”

Suddenly, the light turned a blinding yellow. Merlin’s body arched. 

“Merlin!” Arthur yelled, his voice reverberating off the walls of the cave, even though it was useless.

The light disappeared. Merlin gasped.

His eyes flew open, and they glowed gold.

Merlin was alive.

“Merlin! You  _ idiot!”  _ He was crying in a manner most undignified for the prince of Camelot.

He most certainly did  _ not  _ hug his manservant. He tripped on the rock, and Merlin was conveniently underneath him.


End file.
